This study explains the process of how Kista bibliotek, a library in Stockholm, evolves from being an idea to a running activity. The library is created in a time of change, both political and economical and is supposed to meet many different goals set from many different actors. The library is placed in one of Stockholm’s biggest shopping centres, Kista galleria and close to Kista science city which is an important midpoint for international businesses and science. Kista is also an area of segregation and socioeconomic problems and the library want to connect the different ‘worlds’ and together; the local people, businesses and the community create an environment which to be proud of. With new institutionalism as theoretical frameworks and with the use of qualitative interviews and unobtrusive observations, this paper shows how the original idea transforms throughout different levels of the organization. How the library evolves to be both traditional and progressive, how it meets the needs of the locals and work with the commercial environment to fulfil their mission to be a public place in the middle a commercial shopping centre. This study portrays a picture of a library which is moves between different organizational fields, between the private and public sector to achieve the goal of being a modern library in a modern world.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Studies by feminists frequently investigate reasons why poverty reduction strategies involving income and work generation projects for poor women fail to deliver on set economic and social goals to provide jobs, income, education and skills training. Several reviews over a number of decades indicate a prevalence of welfare-oriented interventions that apparently contradict the intended transformative potential of economic empowerment, gender equality goals and anticipated outcomes included during the design of national policies and programmes. Different theoretical frameworks have, over time, been called upon to account for and have attempted to explain these shifts, changes and contradictions. Studies of women and work in developing countries in the 1970s and 1980s were mostly led by economists who commented on the perceived failure of policies and projects, and continued to investigate the cause of this anomaly. Given that the majority of these experiments combined both social and economic goals these policy findings were later viewed with skepticism leading to further probes about recurring failures, and the lack of progress to improve the status of poor women. After decades of scientific research on gender inequality and a slow pace of change with regard to poor women’s economic status in developing countries, feminists revealed a disturbing finding: the lack of sound, ethical evaluation criteria and frameworks. This influenced a dramatic shift to alternative normative (value-based) approaches in which ethical and moral debates on development policy implementation flourished. Pointing to a general lack of empirical studies addressing policy implementation, arguments by these standpoint feminists proposed that policy and project implementation in different contexts lag far behind achievements in research and policy evidence. This assumption about the lack of integration of policy evidence with appropriate feminist theory, underpins my main motivation in this thesis. My intention is to apply a new feminist lens in order to examine the gendered nature of the historical period in which transitional policies in South Africa were implemented in the aftermath of authoritarian apartheid policies. The current thesis argues for adoption of the political ethics of care (PEOC) as an appropriate normative feminist policy research approach providing excellent criteria for exploring the gendered dimensions of new social policies and programmes implemented during the first policy cycle of reform towards democratising South African society (also referred to as the transition 1994-2001). At the time of its conception, my investigation proceeded with the realisation that iv many projects and programmes were evolving; and that contextual impact assessment criteria in the field of gender and development policy remained an emerging new research terrain lacking appropriate and critical gendered social indicators for monitoring, evaluation and theory building. Most of the newly formulated policies included results of previous research recording the historical role and socio-economic effects of apartheid policies. However, an urgent need existed for new critical gender perspectives to address important post-apartheid issues of vulnerable groups – such as women, youth, physically challenged and children – and arguing for their full citizenship, including economic citizenship and integration into job creation. The evolving policy relational structures that were embarked on during this reform, such as democratic state-civil society partnerships, new democratic decision-making, dialogical processes and policy service programmes, were in dire need of exploration and re-examination using alternative and new feminist theoretical lenses. This study explored the field of social policy implementation in the context of this transition period. It investigated the phenomenon of income generation projects (IGPs), being a development that was new to the South African professional social work disciplinary field. Used as a key macroeconomic policy mechanism, IGPs were embedded in policy relational structures (in the form of partnerships or consortiums) during the transition period. They formed a key part of policy interventions in social development as prescribed by the White Paper on Social Welfare (Department of Welfare, 1997b) having a dual purpose: to reduce poverty and unemployment, and to promote gender-sensitive strategies. The qualitative nature of the design used for this study is combined with a post-modernist and post-structuralist, gendered case study approach drawing on programme evaluation research techniques. Direct observation, documentary analysis, depth interviews and focus groups sessions formed part of a comprehensive data-gathering research strategy used in different micro-project and community settings in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Three broad research questions were pursued throughout this enquiry, addressing the following: the extent to which income generation projects as proposed within the National Developmental Policy Framework were addressing poverty and gender inequality in a satisfactory way; what appropriate normative frameworks and concepts to study these existed; and whether the PEOC could serve as an alternative framework; and how a user perspective could be incorporated in public debates and policy-making. v A sample of four partnership project cases, targeting poor black women (and men) from three different community settings – being semi-rural, peri-urban and urban – as primary beneficiaries met the selection criteria for this longitudinal, in-depth study that drew on purposive and theoretical sampling approaches. All the projects or programmes included in the sample were engaged in job creation and social development work involving multiple stakeholders and partners. A significant part of the study focussed on the formation of partner relationships or consortiums between government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), together with grassroots community-based self-help project participants (beneficiary) groups and individuals. Information and data collected were audio-taped, transcribed and analysed to assess the impact and social effects of newly implemented policy structures and processes on subjects. Alternative feminist theoretical and analytical approaches, being a care perspective that combined critical gender assessment methodologies and feminist ethics (political ethic of care) were applied to argue for more critical and appropriate, gendered research studies that could capture the important link between macroeconomic policies and evidence of unpaid care work embedded and performed within the development sector. By foregrounding the invisible unpaid care work performed by low intensity citizens in this sector, the state’s role and interaction as a development partner with NGOs and poor citizens in the implementation of social development policies that involved job creation and IGPs became apparent. This thesis concludes by reiterating feminist proposals for a more inclusive notion of citizenship and calling for on-going studies to monitor perspectives on gender equality and work creation. More importantly, it suggests that PEOC could serve as an important research and analytical framework to document and integrate the right and access, by both men and women, to care, a critically important gender equality principle so often neglected in existing studies and scholarship.

According to U.S. Small Business Association, the failure rates for small businesses in 2014 were as high as 50% to 80% within the first 5 years of establishment. Failure rates were especially high among restaurant businesses. The purpose of this study was to explore the strategies that small business owners needed to sustain their businesses beyond the first 5 years. Guided by entrepreneurship theory as the conceptual framework, a case study was conducted with semistructured interviews of 3 successful Thai restaurant owners in Salt Lake City, Utah. Member checking and methodological triangulation with field notes, interview data, company websites, customer comments, and government documents help ensure theoretical saturation and trustworthiness of interpretations. Using precoded themes for the data analysis, the 7 themes from this study were entrepreneur characteristics, education and management skills, marketing strategies and competitive advantages, social networks and human relationships, technology and innovation, government supports and social responsibility, and financial planning. Two key results indicated the strategies that were needed for small business owners were entrepreneur management skills and government support for small businesses. These findings may influence positive social change by improving small business owner efficiency and sustainability, increasing higher business income, providing a better quality of living for employees and the well-being of the community, and benefiting the U.S. economy.

The purpose of this exploratory case study was to examine how student-to-teacher interactions encourage students to develop self-regulated learning (SRL) habits and skills. Zimmerman's social cognitive theory of SRL, which supposes a relationship between academic success and SRL, is used as a conceptual framework. The representative case is a computer-based alternative education program for students at risk of dropping out of high school in grades 10-12. The teachers worked one-on-one with students in a computer lab while the students engaged in mastery-based learning using Apex Learning Inc. digital curriculum. Five teachers responded to three questionnaires to examine how student-to-teacher interactions influenced student-to-content interactions, and students' forethought, performance, and evaluation behavior. The teachers also submitted instructional artifacts and described instructional tools, activity types, and scaffolds within the digital curriculum. After analysis of primary and secondary data, the results showed the following: Student-to-teacher interactions encouraged students to engage in forethought behaviors associated with goal setting and strategic planning; examples of performance behaviors were using the content to increase understanding, navigating the content efficiently and effectively, monitoring the use of task strategies, and developing thinking steps; and examples of evaluative behaviors were calibrating and making accurate self-judgments. The study can promote social change by helping students at-risk of dropping out of school develop SRL strategies correlated to academic achievement and high school graduation. SRL habits are transferable to everyday behaviors associated with continued employment, maintaining healthy relationships, and lifelong learning.

Project portfolio management (PPM) is considered a central part for achieving intended strategies for organisations. However, only a percentage of strategies are actually realised, and whilst much previous research has focused on the formulation of strategies, less has been directed towards the realisation. To gain further understanding of how PPM can contribute to realising strategies, this thesis studied the PPM activities of selecting projects and allocating resources, and related challenges when trying to achieve a strategically aligned project portfolio in a matrix organisation. A qualitative case study was performed at a pharmaceutical production company in Stockholm referred to as Medex. An abductive research approach was used, and the data was thematically analysed whilst striving to achieve triangulation. The study was divided into a pre-study and a main study consisting of a total of 15 semi-structured interviews with participants at different positions within the organisation, in parallel to the collection of secondary data from Medex’s intranet.    The study indicate that it is a challenge for a matrix organisation to align projects to strategy through project objectives, and that it is rather project values’ strong connection to strategy that provide a clear link between projects and strategy. It further suggests that using project value for linking projects to strategy can increase the understanding of the motivation of project priorities, as well as creating a foundation for determining if the allocation of resources is oriented towards strategy. Furthermore, the study demonstrates the challenge and necessity for top management to base their decisions on sufficient and reliable information. Moreover, the selection of projects must be performed in accordance with available resource capacity, which highlights the need for strong connections between short-, medium- and long-term resource allocation. Furthermore, the study emphasises the need for a structured way of evaluating PPM processes to improve and address associated challenges. Additionally, the high competition between resources in a matrix organisation is depicted and the study indicates that a strong focus on profits can limit the possibility of achieving a strategically aligned project portfolio. While the study is based on a single case, the findings can be regarded as transferable, at varying extents, to other companies of similar size and organisational structure as well.

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Genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys närstuderas artiklar i de rikstäckande tidningarna Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen och Svenska Dagbladet. Syftet med undersökningen är att ta reda på om rapporteringen kring den chilenska gruvolyckan är ett fall av trivialiserad journalistik - där ekonomisk vinst går före journalistisk kvalitet. De frågeställningar som ligger till grund för analysen är: Hur ser medierapporteringen ut om gruvolyckan i de utvalda tidningarna under den angivna perioden? Hur dramatiseras händelseförloppet under den angivna perioden i de utvalda tidningarna? Vad kännetecknar berättelsen om den chilenska gruvolyckan under den angivna perioden i de utvalda tidningarna? Utgångspunkten är redaktionellt nyhetsmaterial under den 10 till den 17 oktober 2010 som handlar om de 33 männens sista tid i gruvan. Resultaten visar att med hjälp av en överdriven otrohetsaffär, konflikter, lyckliga återföreningar och spektakulära erbjudanden skapades och dramatiserades berättelsen om gruvolyckan.